Canadian Solar Adding Polysilicon Production

Canadian Solar Inc. has announced the firm is getting into the polysilicon production game, increasing its level of vertical integration.

Canadian Solar said its majority-owned subsidiary, CSI Solar Co., Ltd., has inked a related investment agreement with the municipal government of Haidong City in Qinghai Province, China. Under the deal, CSI plans to start construction of a high-purity polysilicon production facility this year that will have an annual output of 50,000 tons (around 45,359 tonnes). The plant is expected to commence production mid-2024.

CSI Solar may not stop there – there’s also potential for ingot, wafer, cell, panel and other production facilities to be constructed in the Haidong solar manufacturing industrial park.

“We are pleased to further increase the level of vertical integration of our manufacturing capacity by adding polysilicon production capabilities,” said Chairman and CEO of Canadian Solar, Dr. Shawn Qu. ” This will help us better control costs, technology and product quality, and thereby further improve our pricing power and margins.”

Polysilicon Production (Mostly) Powered By Renewables

Polysilicon production is an energy-intensive business. But this should be a pretty green operation on that front as Dr Qu mentioned approximately 90% of Qinghai’s installed electricity generation capacity is “clean energy”.

Located in China’s north-west, Qinghai province is situated across the Tibetan Plateau. Covering 720,000 km², it’s sparsely populated and provides plenty of opportunities for renewable energy generation from wind and solar power, and hydropower.

According to the Global Times, hydropower generation in Qinghai reached 59,900 gigawatt-hours in 2020. Electricity generated from solar power hit 8,100 gigawatt-hours that year and wind energy came in at 16,700 GWh.

” Having our solar manufacturing facilities located in Qinghai will help us meaningfully reduce the carbon footprint of our products, especially considering the high energy consumption for manufacturing polysilicon,” said Dr. Qu.

Canadian Solar is a major solar panel manufacturer – and it also more than dabbles in delivering and owning/operating utility scale solar and battery storage projects. According to the company, it has delivered around 71 GW of Canadian Solar panels to customers across the world; including Australia.

The company’s products have been pretty popular here given their performance and comparatively low pricing point. Canadian Solar panel reviews on SolarQuotes have generally been favourable and averaged a 4.9 star ranking over the last 12 months (4.7 stars overall). In this year’s SolarQuotes Installers Choice Awards, Canadian Solar achieved equal third ranking for the best solar panels in 2022 (budget category).

Canadian Solar is currently listed on SQ’s recommended solar panel brands chart.

Polysilicon Spot Price Update

On a related note, solar polysilicon pricing has been sky-high for quite some time now and spot prices have generally headed in the same direction during 2022 as they did for much of last year – up. The latest update from Bernreuter indicates the global polysilicon spot price average is sitting at around US$39.10 per kg currently.

“Despite new production facilities coming on stream, five polysilicon plants under maintenance are limiting growth of total output in China, which is still lagging behind demand in August,” says Bernreuter.

Back in July 2020, the global spot price average at one point was below USD $7/kg. This was just before one of world’s largest producers of polysilicon, GCL Poly, took a major production facility offline after a series of explosions occurred at the plant. The same month, there was a fire at another manufacturer’s plant – Daqo New Energy.

While the pandemic initially pushed down the price of polysilicon as demand dropped off prior to these incidents, demand has since returned with a vengeance and prices have been going up pretty much ever since.